


Sing the Words Wrong

by semperama



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Dry Humping, Friends to Lovers, Holding Hands, M/M, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 22:18:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3185273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris misses being touched, and Zach is too weak to say no to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing the Words Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> This was loosely based off of [this](http://pintokinkmeme.livejournal.com/1138.html?thread=319090#t319090) kink meme prompt before it sort of spiraled out of control on me.
> 
> Thank you to my lovely friend and long-time writing buddy Jupiter for reading this through for me. You are the bestest. <3

Zach arrives at Chris’s doorstep with three bags and two dogs and tries not to think about how much it feels like coming home. He loves New York. He really does. He doesn’t regret moving one bit. But there is no ignoring the relief that makes his shoulders slump and loosens the knot of travel anxiety in his gut when Chris finally opens the door and greets him with one of those million-watt, eye-crinkling smiles of his.

“Zach! You made it!” he says brightly as he pulls Zach into what turns out to be a really, really good hug, complete with back slaps and full-on torso contact and Chris’s stubble scratching his neck. “It’s good to see you, man.”

“Yeah,” Zach says when they pull apart, grinning wider than he should be. “Yeah, you too. Thanks for letting me stay here.”

Chris just makes a dismissive gesture and a scoffing noise, then reaches out to relieve Zach of one of his bags and Noah’s leash, then flings the front door open wide so they can all shuffle inside. Once the dogs are untangled and unclipped and off exploring the house and Zach’s bags are piled in front of the hall that leads to the guest room, Zach just leans against the wall and breathes. God, he missed this place. He’s just now realizing how much he missed it. It’s so aggressively California, so aggressively Chris, all Americana chic and a million times homier than the stupid loft he left back in New York. 

“Seriously though,” he says, looking at Chris who is just standing in the doorway to the kitchen and watching him. “Thank you.”

“Hey, don’t mention it.” Chris shrugs, then rubs the back of his neck a little bashfully. “I couldn’t let you waste your money staying in a hotel for four months. The dogs would be miserable. And I was getting a little lonely anyway.”

“Lonely? You?” Zach teases, mostly to cover up how vulnerable his gratitude is making him feel. “I thought you introverted types didn’t need human contact.”

Chris shrugs again, and doesn’t follow it up with any words this time. His eyes go to the floor for a worrying moment, and Zach frowns, wondering if he missed something, if Chris needed him and he didn’t know it. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Zach is here now, and he is going to be here through at least a few months of filming, and they have a lot of time to catch up on. No more loneliness. Not on his watch.

“Well, I really need a shower, if you don’t mind,” Zach says with a sigh. “I smell like plane. But want to watch a movie or something after?”

“You’re not too tired?” Chris asks, his expression heartbreakingly hopeful. 

“Nah.” It’s sort of a lie, but oh well. “Just promise you won’t hate me if I end up passing out.”

“Deal.”

And then Chris is grinning that bright-as-sunshine grin again, and it’s already worth it.

\-------- 

It’s been a couple years since Zach spent any significant amount of time with Chris--life sort of pulled them in two different directions after the press tour for the last movie--but they slide right back together like no time passed at all. They use the couple weeks they have before filming to catch up on lost time, visiting some of their old haunts and all the places Zach misses the most, soaking in the city and each other’s company like they’re both starving for it. They meet up with mutual friends. They fill up on tacos and tequila, which they tell themselves they’ll work off later. They spend a lot of time just hanging out at Chris’s place too, watching movies or crappy Food Network shows or just sitting in Chris’s sunlit living room while they both check their email and read scripts. Chris cooks a lot, and sometimes they eat out on the back porch, looking over the pool and the orange grove, or sometimes in front of the TV, which almost always gets ignored in favor of conversation.

It feels good. It feels better than it has any right to feel, actually. Zach had a rough few months leading up to this, starting with an out-of-the-blue breakup--probably the first one in a long time that he is willing to classify as Not His Fault--and the subsequent churn of moving out, questioning everything in his life, wondering whether he should ever have moved in the first place, and generally not wanting to do anything. Being back in LA has a healing effect on him. It always seemed like such a phony place to him in the past, but now it’s serving as a reminder to slow down and take pleasure in the little things--a good cup of coffee, his dogs napping in the sunshine, a morning run through the hills, the smell of steaks on the grill. 

Chris makes for good company too. They have satisfying, easy conversation, and they have satisfying, easy silence, and the transitions from one to the other are never awkward. Sometimes living with a friend is a good way to ruin the friendship, but that certainly isn’t the case for them. It feels good. That homey feeling Zach had when he first arrived only grows. 

The last night before filming starts, Zach gives Chris a break and does the cooking himself--lasagna and caesar salad and garlic bread and all the things they probably shouldn’t be eating. They both have multiple helpings, and then Zach insists on doing the dishes, while Chris leans against the counter behind him and keeps him company. 

“You can go sit down, you know,” Zach says, even though he appreciates the distraction. Dishes have never been his favorite thing.

“I know,” Chris says, but he doesn’t move. Come to think of it, other than sleeping and the rare occasion when either of them have gone out to meet friends separately, Chris has hardly ever not been in the same room as Zach. It’s a little bit strange, if Zach thinks about it. Chris usually enjoys his alone time, but it seems like he has been reluctant to get too far away from Zach since he arrived.

“You excited about filming?” he asks while he scrubs dried meat sauce off of a spoon. He has to toss a quick look over his shoulder to see the expression on Chris’s face. 

“Yeah. I’m ready to get back in that chair,” Chris says with a smile.

“You’re ridiculous,” Zach laughs, then returns to scrubbing. “I’m convinced you think you actually are a part time starship captain.”

“Nah,” Chris says. “I’m just...I don’t know. I’m ready to be back at it. I let myself have a little time off the past few months, but I don’t do well with not being busy. Just lets me think too much.”

Zach hums his understanding. “Well, you’re definitely going to be busy now.”

“Good.”

There’s a weird note in Chris’s voice, but Zach tries not to read too much into it, just figures he must be tired and anticipating the work they have ahead of them. With the last dish clean and put in the drying rack, Zach wipes his hands on the dish towel and turns around, and that’s when he gets an armful of Chris.

“Uhh, hi,” he says with a chuckle as he reflexively wraps his arms around Chris’s shoulders, returning the hug.

“I’m glad you’re here, man.” Chris thumps him twice on the back, like that’ll make this any less of a sort of awkward cuddle. Zach is a little painfully aware of Chris’s breath on the back of his neck.

“I’m...I’m glad I’m here too.” He is. He just isn’t sure why it warrants a hug. Chris is tactile, sure, but this is a bit… _more_ than usual. Nevertheless, he rubs his hand up and down Chris’s back and gives him a squeeze before pulling away. Chris’s hand slides down Zach’s arm before he takes a small step back.

“So...yeah, I’m gonna hit the sack now,” he says, obviously a little embarrassed by his outburst of affection. “Captain needs his beauty rest.”

Zach chortles. Now that there’s a little space between them, the hug already seems less weird than it did a moment ago. “Yeah, I just need to walk the dogs and then I think I’ll do the same.” He slides out from between Chris and the sink, giving his bicep a squeeze in passing. “I’ll see you bright and early in the morning.”

“See you,” Chris says, flashing a shy smile and then ducking his head and heading past Zach toward the bedroom. Zach watches him go with a furrow in his brow, fighting the urge to call after him and ask if he wants to talk.

It’s probably nothing. 

\--------

It’s about as easy to get back into the swing of filming as it was getting back into the swing of spending time with Chris. By now, they have all had their characters in their head long enough that they can all slip them on like a second skin, and it helps that the cast is like family. They can spend months, even years apart, and when they get back together again, there is just as much warmth and camaraderie as there ever was. It’s different without JJ, but the new director is a cool guy, and they all welcome him with open arms. 

If Zach thought he was spending a lot of time with Chris before, it’s almost ridiculous now. They share a car to set at the crack of dawn every morning, both nonverbal and sucking down coffee like it’s ambrosia. They spend most of their day either in front of the cameras or slumped in their chairs, knees pressed together, quietly watching their castmates do their thing. Then, they ride back home together and veg on the couch for the scant hour or two before heading off to bed so they can do it all over again the next day. Zach can’t remember the last time he turned around and Chris wasn’t there. It probably should be getting on his nerves way more than it actually is. 

There is just one problem. The weirdness that Zach has been sensing in Chris isn’t going away. In fact, it only seems to be getting worse. Where Zach would have expected him to get crabby and standoffish after long days with people in his face all the time, he only seems to be getting more clingy. Every once in a while, Zach will catch his eye from across a room and get a glimpse of what looks like desperation there. It’s a little worrisome. Zach keeps trying to ask Chris what’s bugging him, but it just never seems like the right time.

And it’s not like Chris seems _depressed_. Just...weird. A little bit off. It’s like he’s perpetually on the verge of asking for something and never quite manages to. And Zach is perpetually fighting the urge to tell him to spit it out.

Eventually, it starts to come out on its own, bit by bit.

In their second week of filming, Zach is sitting on the couch reading one evening when Chris shuffles into the living room with a sheepish expression on his face. 

“Hey, can you, uhh--” Chris flushes bright red, all the way down to the collar of his t-shirt. Zach sets aside his book and arches an eyebrow. “I have this, umm, itch in the very center of my back and I can’t reach it.” Like the ridiculous human being he is, Chris contorts to demonstrate, first hooking his arm back over his head, then trying again from underneath, wrinkling his nose in frustration. “Those damn Starfleet undershirts, man. They’re made out of sandpaper, I swear.”

“You’ve just gotten too used to your stretched-out t-shirts made of angel down or whatever,” Zach says, and pats the couch beside him. “And I’ll bet your skin is dry. You need to spring for some decent body wash.”

“Okay, Zachary,” Chris says as he walks over and sits down, drawing out the syllables of his name to emphasize his sarcasm. “After this we can get in the shower and you can teach me how to properly wash my back.”

Zach chuckles, then pushes at Chris’s shoulder, encouraging him to turn a little so he can get to his back. “I just said you need better soap, dude. I didn’t say anything about mutual showering. Keep your dirty fantasies inside your head.”

Chris huffs and Zach can practically see the eye roll, even though Chris is facing away now. “Shut up,” he says lamely, then wriggles his shoulders as if to remind Zach why he’s sitting there.

Zach grins, then reaches out, setting his nails against the fabric of Chris’s shirt, in between his shoulder blades. “Here?”

“Down a little bit.” Zach moves his hand. “Yeah, there.”

At first, Zach is all business, digging in as best as he can do with his short nails, moving his hand in a little circle to ensure he hits the right spot. Chris arches his back a little, then rounds his shoulders, then wriggles a little. 

“Am I getting it?” Zach asks.

“Ungh. Uh. Not...quite.” Chris squirms around a little more, pushing back against Zach’s hand. Zach tries to scratch harder, but Chris makes a frustrated sound and shakes his head. Then, he slides his hands under the collar of his shirt and tugs it off over his head in one smooth motion.

“Whoa, whoa,” Zach says. His mouth suddenly feels dry. His heart may have just skipped a beat. “Warn a guy before you start stripping.”

Chris casts a contrite, sort of bashful look over his shoulder, then turns away again. “Sorry, dude. Your nails are too short.”

“I’m sorry,” Zach says with mock sincerity. “I’ll go to my manicurist and get fake ones glued on immediately so I can please you as well as all your other girlfriends.”

Chris’s shoulders shake in silent laughter, and then he shimmies them a little on purpose. “Try now?”

Zach reaches out and fits his fingers to the faint red lines his over-the-shirt scratching efforts left on Chris’s skin. This time, when he scratches, Chris’s shoulders go round and stay that way, his head dropping forward and a little sound of satisfaction escaping his mouth. Zach keeps moving his hand, up and down, left and right, watching as a crosshatch of red blooms on Chris’s back. He scratches all the way down to the waistband of Chris’s jeans, then up again, to his neck, until Chris stops twitching under his touch and lets out a satisfied sigh.

“Fuck, that’s good.”

“If you’re enjoying this that much, I might have to charge you,” Zach quips, mostly to distract himself from the fact that he is pretty sure the husky tone of Chris’s voice just gave him some feelings he should not be having.

“Calling yourself a whore?” Chris rasps. And yeah, okay, he really, really needs to stop talking. Or Zach needs to stop scratching. But he can’t seem to make himself. 

“Only for backscratches,” Zach says, trying to keep his voice even. He isn’t really pressing hard anymore--he doesn’t want to scratch Chris raw--and the way he’s ghosting his nails across Chris’s shoulder blades is raising goosebumps under his fingertips. He traces the path from one mole in the center of Chris’s back to another low down near his side, to a third just shy of his right shoulder. Chris’s skin feels hot. The back of his neck and the tops of his shoulders are flushed. Zach watches his muscles flex as he shifts, like he’s trying to make himself move but can’t quite do it. 

It seems like forever before Chris finally gives a little shudder and scootches away. “Okay. Uncle. I give.”

Were they playing chicken just now? Someone should have informed Zach. He bites down on his bottom lip, then forces a smile when Chris turns back toward him with a sheepish expression. “Sorry,” he says with a shrug, like it’s no big deal. And it isn’t. What’s a back scratch between buddies? Plus, Chris totally goaded him into it. “I was right though,” Zach rushes on. “Your skin is dry. I’ve got some lotion you can use that’ll help.”

“Thanks,” Chris says as he tugs his shirt back on. It leaves his hair messy and sticking out at odd angles, but he makes no move to fix it. Zach almost reaches out and fixes it himself. He shoves his hand under his thigh to stifle the urge.

“Hey, Worst Cooks in America is on soon. Want to watch?” The Food Network is always a good distraction. Food in general is always a good distraction.

Sure enough, Chris’s face lights up, all signs of weirdness disappearing. “Yeah, definitely!”

Zach fishes the remote out of couch cushions and turns on the TV and, thank the Lord, he only stays half-hard until the first commercial break.

\--------

The next Touching Incident, as Zach has started to call Chris’s not-so-subtle demands for physical contact, happens about a week later, when Chris comes home early from shooting and finds Zach out back with the dogs. Zach didn’t have any scenes today, and he has spent most of the day bored and irritable, but it’s hard to feel bad sitting in the oasis that is Chris’s yard while his dogs snuffle around the ferns nearby and the sun is starting to sink behind the hills, turning the sky orange and purple.

It’s even harder when Chris flops down in the grass next to him and puts his head on Zach’s thigh, like that’s something he does every day. “So fucking glad I have tomorrow off. I’m beat.”

“You want some cheese with that whine?” Zach says, leaning back on his hands and looking down to meet Chris’s eyes. “You had a half day. Give me a break.”

“Actually, cheese sounds great. I’m starved.” Surprise, surprise. “What’s for dinner?”

Zach raises his eyebrows. “Don’t look at me. You’re the cook.” Zach _can_ cook of course, but he hasn’t elevated it to an art form like Chris has. He doesn’t have the same hedonistic attitude toward food.

“Too tired to cook,” Chris grouses, rocking his head back and forth on Zach’s leg in protest. Zach puts a hand to his forehead to stop him.

“I’ll order us something then,” he says obligingly. “Pizza?”

“Is that part of your Spock diet?”

Zach frowns. He may not love food with the same all-consuming passion as Chris, but that doesn’t mean he likes dieting either. _No one_ likes dieting. “Thai then?”

“Sure.” But when Zach shifts to stand up, Chris reaches up and slaps his chest. “In a minute. This is nice.”

It _is_ nice actually. Chris’s head is a heavy but comfortable weight in his lap, and his face looks peaceful, his eyes following Skunk as he wanders toward the edge of the pool. His hair is a mess where he probably ran his hand through it a hundred times on the drive home, making up for the fact that he had to keep his hands off it all day. Before he can stop himself, Zach threads his fingers into it, attempting to comb it into some semblance of order.

“Mmm,” Chris hums. Zach’s hand pauses for just a moment, but then he starts up again, combing Chris’s hair back away from his face.

“You should wash your hair more often,” he says, then coughs to clear the frog in his throat. “Looks like you’re breaking out near your hairline.”

“I think it’s the fucking makeup,” Chris says, making a face. “Anyway, I don’t like to wash my hair too much. It dries out so easy. Gets really coarse.”

It’s not coarse now. It’s soft. It feels nice against Zach’s palm. He sucks in a breath and pulls his hand away.

But Chris reaches out and catches his wrist. “Don’t stop.” He looks up at Zach, and their eyes meet for a tense second. If he didn’t know better, Zach would think Chris can look at him and see every thought in his head. He almost starts apologizing for nothing. “Just a little longer,” Chris continues. “Please? It feels good. I--”

“Okay,” Zach says, cutting Chris off. If he listen to him beg any longer he’s going to go out of his mind. This is the lesser of two evils--two impossible temptations. “Cool your jets, Puppy Pine. I won’t stop petting.”

Chris grins that bright, innocent grin that would look ridiculous on any other face, and Zach breathes out a silent sigh. This man is going to be the death of him.

But that doesn’t keep him from stroking Chris’s hair until the sun goes down.

\--------

It’s a testament to how far gone Zach is that he doesn’t notice until twenty minutes into the movie that 1. he and Chris don’t normally hold hands, and 2. they are definitely holding hands right now. Chris’s thumb has been stroking across his knuckles, his fingers squeezing every so often like he is thinking about pulling away but can’t bring himself to do it. It’s adorable. That’s what Zach has been thinking this whole time--”This is way too fucking adorable”--and then all of a sudden he realizes that it’s also _weird_ and _bad_ , really bad. He jerks his hand away like he’s been burned.

Smooth, Zach. 

Chris looks over at him, and the expression on his face is exactly like a child who has just dropped half his ice cream cone on the ground, and Zach can’t reach for the remote and jam the pause button fast enough.

“What the hell?” he says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out that strangled, but, well, _what the hell?_

“Uhh. Sorry, dude, I was just--”

“Holding my hand,” Zach supplies, because he has a feeling Chris was about to call it something other than what it was. Something that would lessen it. A bro-riffic hand-hug. Platonic finger cuddles.

“Well, yeah, but--”

“Why were you holding my hand, Chris?”

The kicked-puppy look on Chris’s face melts away, replaced by the kind of annoyance that comes from getting backed into a corner. “It’s not like you were stopping me.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Zach knows he’s deflecting, but he doesn’t quite know what to say to that one yet. He isn’t letting himself think right now about why he didn’t stop it. Or why he didn’t immediately realize something was not quite normal. Or why his palms are sweating like he’s nervous. _Nothing_ makes him nervous.

Chris shifts a little, sheepishness mingling with the irritation on his face, giving him this confused and conflicted expression that Zach will never, ever admit is melting his heart a little bit. “I, uh, I just wanted to,” he says, then shakes his head a little like that isn’t what he meant to say. He rushes on. “Not...not because I wanted to hold _your_ hand specifically. Just because I wanted to hold...you know, _someone’s_ hand.”

“Wow, thanks,” Zach says. He immediately gives himself a mental kick for that one. That wasn’t the right thing to say. Chris shoots him a sharp look, then his brow furrows a bit, but thankfully he just shrugs it off and moves on.

“I don’t know, man. It’s just been a long time since I’ve been with anyone, you know? A _long_ time. Like...almost two fucking years.”

“Uh-huh,” Zach says, like he understands, which he doesn’t. He just wants Chris to come to the point already, before he gives in to his urge to bolt. There is this sense of impending doom building in his chest.

“I just miss...Jesus, this sounds so fucking stupid. I just miss being touched, okay? And touching other people. I’m...fuck, I’m not good at being _with_ people. I fucking suck at relationships. But it’s like...it’s like my _skin_ gets lonely, you know? No, of course you don’t fucking know. That sounds--”

“No, I get it,” Zach interrupts. Someone has to save Chris from his own verbal diarrhea, and Zach is the only one here to shoulder that burden, even though he doesn’t think he has the right words to say right now either. When in doubt, repeat the other person’s words back to them. “You miss the physical parts of being in a relationship.”

“Right. Yes. Exactly.” Chris looks a little relieved. Zach says a silent thank you to his therapist for teaching him how to pretend he’s a sympathetic listener. “And...I don’t know. I’m comfortable with you. It seemed like a good idea.”

“You could have, like, asked me first,” Zach points out, even though it feels like an impotent point to be making.

“Oh, sure,” Chris scoffs. “‘Hey, Zach, want to platonically hold hands with me?’ That doesn’t sound idiotic at all.”

“Yeah, well. You’re frequently idiotic. I’m used to it.” 

“Says the man with no eyebrows.” Chris is pouting now, evidenced by the jut of his lower lip and the fact that he only snipes at Zach’s waxed-within-an-inch-of-their-life Spock eyebrows when he is out of other good points to make. 

“Low blow,” Zach says. “And not my fault.” He lets out a sigh and runs his hand through his hair, trying to figure out the best way to handle this not like a dick. Because he is definitely tempted to be a dick. He has about forty sarcastic quips on the tip of his tongue, ranging from offering to buy Chris a hooker just so he can snuggle up to her for an hour to suggesting that he get one of the PAs on the Trek set to hold hands with him, since they will do just about anything anyone asks of them. He has a feeling his therapist would tell him that sarcasm is just a defense mechanism though. He has a feeling she would also tell him he absolutely cannot engage in platonic physical contact with someone he has feelings for, because that makes it fundamentally unplatonic.

So, he has sort of a dilemma here.

“Look, man, don’t worry about it,” Chris says when Zach has been silent too long. “I’m sorry I...you know, held your hand without your consent. It won’t happen again.”

It’s that little disappointed note in Chris’s voice that ends up breaking him. Zach just needs to be a good friend right now, right? That’s all. Chris is doing him a favor by letting him stay here, and this is just a way to pay him back. He can totally divorce physical touch from feelings. He can. Really.

“What if it wasn’t without my consent?” Zach says, before he can acknowledge how uncertain the voice in his head sounds.

“Huh?” Chris says, looking adorably confused again.

“What if I agree to...hold your hand and give you back rubs and back scratches and pet your hair and whatever else you’ve been trying to trick me into doing the past few weeks? Er. within reason, I mean.”

Chris peers at Zach for a moment, like he’s trying to make sure he’s actually serious. Zach keeps his expression blank, but he doesn’t look away, and after a moment Chris forces a nervous laugh. “Within reason? Damn. I was just about to ask if we could add blowjobs to that list.”

That comment right there is why this is probably a horrible idea. Zach plows on anyway. “Yeah, no. Clothes on at all times.”

“Oh, you’re making rules now?” Chris asks, raising an eyebrow. He seems to be relaxing a little more now though, so that’s something.

“Yes. Someone should,” Zach says pointedly. “So Rule Number One, clothes stay on.”

Chris stares at him for a moment, considering, then gives a magnanimous nod. “Okay, go on.” It’s cute, how he seems to think he gets veto power.

Zach ticks off a second finger. “Rule Number Two, we do this only in private. I’m not going to get papped holding your hand and then be stuck having to explain our little deal to my agent...and my mother.”

“Yeah, that’s reasonable,” Chris agrees.

“Rule Number Three,” Zach continues, rubbing his palms on his thighs and looking away for just a moment. “If things start to get….weird, we have to stop. Your cuddle deprivation isn’t worth ruining our friendship.” Evidently Zach was never going to make it through this whole conversation without being a dick after all. Of _course_ Chris wouldn’t do this if he thought it was going to ruin their friendship. Zach is the one that’s playing with fire, the one that has already been enjoying things a little too much, even before it edged into more coupley territory. But as long as Chris doesn’t feel anything, it’s safe, right? If Zach knows Chris is off limits, it won’t end up going too far.

Chris wrinkles his nose, and the corners of his mouth turn down a little. It’s not quite a scowl, but it’s close. Zach can’t say he blames him.

“Things aren’t going to get weird,” Chris insists.

“Well...it’s already a little weird.” So Zach might be a little bit of a dick. So sue him.

Chris really does scowl this time. “You don’t have to--”

“No, no,” Zach cuts in with a belatedly regretful sigh. “I want to. I do. I want to help. You need to be in a good headspace while we’re filming anyway.” He raises both of his mutilated eyebrows and smirks a little. “It’s only logical, right?”

The playful comment seems to help. Chris’s shoulder slump a little with relief, and he ducks his head to ineffectively hide a shy grin. “Thanks, man.”

“Hey, don’t mention it,” Zach says lightly, knocking his shoulder into Chris’s. “Just try not to fall in love with me, okay? I mean, it would be great for our Spock and Kirk chemistry, but--”

Chris throws a pillow at his head. “Stop talking.”

Zach feels good now. Better. This isn’t such a big deal. This is an exercise in friendship. It’ll be good for personal growth. Or something.

“Alright, start the movie,” Zach says. Then, he flops his arm over onto Chris’s thigh, palm-side up. “And hold my hand already.”

Chris is smiling when he picks up the remote, smiling when he slides his hand into Zach’s, and smiling through the next full ten minutes of the movie.

\--------

Something’s wrong. Zach sits straight up in bed and peers into the darkness of Chris’s guest bedroom, trying to figure out what’s sending the sparks of worry down his spine. He listens to the sounds of the house--the soft hum of the AC, the breeze through the trees outside, the faint ticking of the old clock on the wall in the hallway. It takes a moment for him to realize that there’s a sound missing.

Noah. The sound of Noah’s soft snores has been his white noise machine for what feels like forever now, and it is the only thing that could get him to sleep for the first couple weeks after he and Miles broke up. Zach had moved Noah’s doggy bed from the corner of the room to right next to his bedside table, where his sleepy snuffling had made him feel less alone. Now, when Zach looks over to that bed (which had obviously made the trek with them from New York to LA), it is empty.

He throws back the covers and climbs out of bed, glancing to make sure Skunk is curled up on his little bed in the corner before stepping out into the quiet hallway. The bedroom door had been ajar--Zach must have forgotten to close it all the way when he went to bed that night--so Noah probably just snuck out for a midnight stroll around the house, but Zach isn’t going to be able to sleep until he finds him.

After he checks the kitchen, the living room, the den, and both bathrooms with still no sight of Noah, it’s hard not to panic a little bit. He stands at the mouth of the hallway that leads to Chris’s room and hesitates there a moment, then tiptoes down the hall, pausing to peer into the laundry room, then stop in front front of the half-open door to the master.

Sure enough, there’s Noah. In Chris’s bed. He’s curled up in a ball, tucked against Chris’s tummy, and Chris is almost spooned around him, facing the door, his face peaceful in sleep, one hand curled into Noah’s fur. It’s a beautiful, peaceful picture. The moonlight streaming in the back window casts flattering shadows over Chris’s body--highlighting the curve of his bicep, the hollow of his neck, the bit of hipbone that peeks out from the sheets pooled high across his thighs. Zach stands there and watches for a moment and almost forgets why he is there in the first place, half-convinced that this vision is exactly what he came here to see.

But then Noah stirs, huffs, lifts his head off the bed. Zach shakes his head, the spell broken.

“Noah, come,” he whispers as loudly as he dares, hoping not to disturb Chris.

Noah yawns wide, then slowly gets to his feet, dislodging Chris’s hand and causing it to fall back to the bed with a thump. That, coupled with Noah walking toward Zach and jumping down onto the floor with a loud clack of nails on hardwood, has Chris stirring, then rubbing at his eyes, then blinking sleepily and squinting through the darkness at Zach.

“Zach?” he says quietly, his voice syrupy and slurred with sleep.

“Sorry. Go back to sleep,” Zach says. “I just came to get Noah.”

But Chris doesn’t listen, of course. Does he ever? He props himself up on his elbow and rubs his eyes again. “He can stay here,” he says, fighting a yawn. “He was keeping me warm.”

“He shouldn’t be sleeping in a bed. You’ll give him bad habits,” Zach says without any real feeling behind it.

“Whatever, dude. I’m supposed to spoil him. I’m like the cool uncle or something.” He smiles a sleepy, endearing-as-hell smile that has Zach smiling helplessly back at him.

“It seems like he was spoiling you, graciously being your personal heater and all.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I deserve to be spoiled a little too.”

Zach smiles a little wider and inclines his head, but he doesn’t say anything to that. It’d be too dangerous at this time of night, when he’s half-awake and anything could come out of his mouth. Instead, he reaches down to give Noah a quick scratch behind the ears and then half-turns to go. “Good night, Pine.”

He almost, _almost_ makes it out of the room.

“Zach,” Chris says, so tentative that Zach knows what’s going to come out of his mouth next before it comes. “You should just stay.”

Zach turns back toward Chris and raises an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

“Uhh.” Chris looks like he is struggling both against sleep and against himself. His head falls back down to the pillow, and he holds out his hand. “Come here?”

It’s a little ridiculous for Chris to expect that he can just turn those beautiful, sleepy eyes on Zach and ask him for something and Zach will just do it. The irony isn’t lost on him that he is already climbing into bed with Chris before he even finishes thinking that thought. 

He takes Chris’s hand and then presses it to his chest as he stretches out beside him. Chris makes a little contented sound and closes his eyes again as a small smile forms on his face. “The only thing harder to get used to than sleeping with someone else in your bed is getting used to sleeping alone,” he says quietly.

“I never did like sharing a bed,” Zach admits. He thinks about how hard it was to sleep with Miles next to him; his bony elbows and knobby knees seemed to have a talent for finding the fleshy parts of his body in the middle of the night, or his hair would end up in his mouth, or how Zach would wake up sweating because he was pressed up against him and his body was like a skinny little furnace. 

“Why am I not surprised?” Chris says, smirking without opening his eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zach shoots back, but he is smiling too. He lets go of Chris’s hand, but it remains pressed against his t-shirt, over his heart.

“You just seem like you’d be finicky about your sleep space. Like you are about...you know, everything else in life.” Zach chuckles when he realizes he can’t argue with that--not with Chris anyway, who knows him far too well. Chris opens his eyes just a little bit and they crinkle at the corners. “I just like knowing someone is there, I guess.”

“To keep the monsters from getting you?” Zach teases. Soft Chris in the soft light with his soft smile is making him feel uncharacteristically tender.

“Maybe. You gonna keep the monsters from getting me, Zach?”

Zach hems. “Only if you promise to keep your elbows to yourself.”

It too dark to fully interpret the look in Chris’s eye, so Zach is just going to assume it’s not nearly as knowing as it seems right now. “I won’t even touch you, if you’ll stay,” he says, then starts to take back his hand. Zach grabs his wrist on impulse. 

“No, it’s...fine.” He drags Chris’s hand back to his chest and then anchors it there with his palm. “I can always shake you off once you fall asleep.”

Even in the moonlight, it’s easy to tell that Chris is blushing a little bit. He closes his eyes as if he can hide from it that way, and then flexes his fingers just the slightest bit, like he was thinking about clutching Zach’s shirt but decided against it. Zach keeps meaning to close his eyes too, but he can’t seem to do it.

A couple minutes pass, in which Chris’s breathing starts to even out. Then, just as Zach is about to try to drift back to sleep himself, Noah--poor forgotten Noah--jumps back up onto the bed and steps over Zach’s legs, then plops down between them and lets out a contented huff. The bed shakes for a moment with Chris’s silent giggles.

“Sorry, Zach,” he whispers.

Zach lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Oh well. I guess he deserves to be spoiled sometimes.”

He watches as Chris tries and fails to suppress a smile.

\--------

They don’t spend _every_ night in the same bed after that--sometimes Zach just loans out Noah, or sometimes he sits in Chris’s bed reading or watching TV until Chris falls asleep and then heads back to the guest room--but it does become a regular occurrence. At first, Zach has as hard a time sharing a bed with someone as he ever did in the past, but the adjustment period ends up being much smaller than he thought it would be. Chris is an ideal bed partner--he doesn’t snore, doesn’t move hardly at all in his sleep, doesn’t hog the blankets or get tangled up in them. They always fall asleep with a couple feet of space between them and wake up the same way, no crowding or awkward cuddling. Chris usually likes to be touching Zach’s chest or his arm or his hip, but he doesn’t ask for more than that. And it’s obvious he’s getting better sleep--he wakes up less grumpy and makes it longer through the day before the brightness starts to drain out of his eyes. It’s easy for Zach to placate himself with proof that he is actually helping. He isn’t being self-indulgent. He’s being selfless. It’s all for Chris, really it is.

The touching is becoming more and more frequent and intimate though--there is no way Zach can ignore that. Chris will spend entire evenings in front of the TV with his head on Zach’s shoulder and his fingers ruffling the hair on his arms, or he’ll beg for head scratches and neck rubs after a particularly long day. When Zach cooks, Chris hovers nearby, occasionally hooks a chin over his shoulder. They have even started holding hands in the car on the way to and from set, thumbs stroking the heels of each other’s palms as they struggle to wake themselves up.

The days they have off are the worst. As much as Zach has been enjoying spending time with Chris, he has started to make sure he makes plans to be out of the house for at least part of the day every time he has a day off, because otherwise he will spend the whole day pressed up against Chris on the couch, and by the end of it he’ll hardly remember they aren’t actually a couple. Twice now he has almost forgotten himself and leaned in for a good night kiss before he stumbled off to bed. He probably should be listening to the little voice in his head telling him that things are getting too intense and ask Chris to back off, but somehow he always manages to convince himself he’s doing okay.

Until he can’t anymore. 

It’s one of those aforementioned days off, and Zach is laid out on his back, a book propped up in one hand, and Chris is sprawled out on top of him. One of Chris’s legs is hanging halfway off the couch in a way that seems like it should be uncomfortable, but he hasn’t moved or spoken since Zach started reading to him thirty minutes ago, and there’s a good possibility he is asleep. His hair is starting to tickle Zach’s chin, but if he _is_ sleeping, Zach doesn’t want to disturb him by trying to shift around. He just keeps on reading, one arm wrapped around Chris’s waist, trying not to concentrate too hard on the way they have started to breathe together.

He is about to start the next chapter--has just sucked in a preparatory breath--when finally Chris shifts a little and tips his face up, nuzzling his face against Zach’s collarbone where it extends out of the neck of his t-shirt. He doesn’t say anything, but Zach falls silent anyway, waiting for something that he knows is coming. 

“Do you ever just feel like making out with someone?” Chris muses into the skin of Zach’s neck, his voice as calm as if he had been talking about the weather. “I miss kissing.”

The world slowly, slowly spins to a stop. “What?” Zach says, his breath hitching just a little when Chris’s fingers find the strip of skin between his shirt and the waistband of his sweats.

Chris’s nose slides along Zach’s jaw, and Zach has to hold his breath. He _has_ to, because if he breathes, he will be breathing way too hard--so he sucks in air and holds it, keeps it trapped there while Chris nuzzles at his cheek, then drags his closed lips through the stubble near the corner of his mouth. Jesus H. Christ. All of a sudden, Zach is rock-fucking-hard, and Chris has to be able to feel that, draped over top of him like he is, but if he can, he shows no sign of it. 

“I miss kissing,” Chris repeats. 

Zach’s lungs are burning, so he breathes out slowly, shakily through his nose, then turns his head a little bit, so Chris’s mouth is hovering just millimeters over his. It’s not quite a response, but it’s not quite _not_ a response either. 

Chris’s hand starts sliding up under his shirt, and Zach reaches down to stop it. The fabric of his shirt is between their hands, but somehow it still feels almost as intimate a touch as Chris’s lips on his face. “I think you’re skirting the rules here, Chris,” Zach whispers, though he hates himself for doing it.

“Your clothes are still on,” Chris says, his mouth curving into a cheeky grin that Zach feels rather than sees. “I’m not breaking any rules.”

“You’re breaking the spirit of the rules,” he points out, trying to affect the air of a stern schoolteacher but landing somewhere closer to embarrassingly aquiver.

Chris pushes his hand past Zach’s grip like he hasn’t heard him, stroking his fingers over his sternum and swirling them through the hair on his chest. “Can I kiss you?” he says quietly. His lips are back at the corner of Zach’s mouth, brushing against his skin in a way that is half-tickling, half-titillating, and completely infuriating. He was hoping Chris wouldn’t give him a choice, but he has, and Zach can’t avoid responsibility for this thing that’s about to happen, as much as he wants to. 

He turns his head, searching for Chris’s plush lips with his own. It starts as more of a touch of open mouths than a kiss, and neither of them moves to deepen it for a while, the tension building until Zach is sure his heart is going to punch right through his chest, or that he is going to have to grab Chris by the hips and throw him bodily off the couch so he can make a break for it. Then, the tip of Chris’s tongue sneaks out and touches to Zach’s top lip, and Zach lets out an involuntary breath, and suddenly they are both on fire.

Chris groans and slides his tongue into Zach’s mouth so languidly and obscenely that the sensation goes straight to his cock. It’s all he can do not to push his hips up off the couch, to grind his persistent hard-on against Chris’s stomach. He tightens his grip on Chris’s waist and sucks on his tongue, then follows it when it retreats back into his mouth. Chris’s thigh is positioned between Zach’s legs, and he is very aware of the way the muscle moves when Chris uses that leg to lever himself a little farther up Zach’s body. The friction is almost too much, made definitely too much by the fact that Chris is forcing Zach’s had back farther against the arm of the couch and bringing one hand up to frame of the side of his face. His palm is large and warm, and the tips of his fingers play at the hair above Zach’s ear, and it’s kind of ridiculous how wanted it’s making Zach feel. More wanted than he has felt in a long time. Years, maybe. Maybe ever.

 _It’s not real though_ , his brain tries desperately to remind him. That thought rattles around in his brain for a moment or two, allowing him to make it safely through Chris tonguing his bottom lip and scratching his nails along his scalp without coming in his pants. He tries to stay dispassionate--keep his mouth relaxed and his breathing slow and his hands still. It’s sort of working. Sort of. Until Chris starts playing dirty.

His hand slides over one of Zach’s pecs, and all of a sudden he’s dragging his thumbnail across one of Zach’s nipples, and Zach’s hips buck up of their own accord.

“Chris, fuck,” he says, turning his face to the side to break the kiss. “ _Rules._ ”

“But it feels good,” Chris whines--fucking _whines_ \--and then curls his tongue around Zach’s earlobe. 

Of fucking course it feels good, Zach wants to say, but he bites his lip to keep the words from coming out, afraid they will just encourage Chris. He takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets it out slowly, turning his head back toward Chris so he can look at him. But that might have been a bad idea, because his cheeks are flushed and his mouth is red, and he’s just begging to be kissed some more. “If you can’t be good--”

“I’ll be good,” Chris says hurriedly. He moves his hand back to safer territory, over Zach’s heart, and the other hand slides down to cup the side of his neck. “I’ll be good, I promise.” 

It’s the worst attempt at sincerity that Zach has ever heard. Chris sounds like he would say anything right now to get Zach to kiss him again, and that probably should be a huge red flag, but Zach isn’t exactly thinking clearly at the moment--not with Chris’s obscene mouth hovering right there. He moves one hand to the back of Chris’s head and pulls him back down, kissing him gently, first his bottom lip and then his top one, and then tipping his head to the side and slotting their mouths together again, must softer than before, hoping they can keep this in safe territory now.

For a little bit, it works. They kiss each other carefully, methodically, and Zach tries to enjoy the sensations for what they are rather than the fact that they are coming from Chris. He catalogues each feeling as objectively as he can--the texture of Chris’s hair under his fingers, the softness of his mouth, the weight of his body. He focuses so hard that he doesn’t even notice Chris has been rocking their hips together until it’s almost too late.

“Shit,” Zach gasps, just as Chris nips at his bottom lip, pulling him out of his head and back into his body, which is betraying the hell out of him. “Oh my God. Oh, fuck.” Chris is dry-humping him with aplomb. Zach can feel the muscles of his lower back shift as his hips keep circling, inexorably pushing Zach toward a precipice that he is already far too close to. 

“Zach,” Chris says, giving up on kissing and panting wetly against the side of Zach’s face. Hearing his name said like that, in that smoky, sexy rasp, out of Chris’s mouth, flips some kind of switch in Zach. His hands find Chris’s ass before he even makes the conscious decision to move them, his fingers gripping him bruisingly and urging him on.

“Come on,” he groans. “Do it.” He isn’t sure what he is telling Chris to do, but Chris seems to know, because he thrusts harder, then more erratically, and makes a pained, mewling sound into Zach’s ear. Zach is right there on the edge, about to come in his pants like he’s sixteen again, but he wants Chris to go first. And Chris does. His hips stutter and stop, and a shocked gasp forces its way out of his mouth, and he tucks his face into Zach’s neck like he needs to hide. Zach is right there with him, thrusting up against Chris one more time before he is adding to the wet heat spreading between them, Chris’s name a whisper on his lips.

For long moments after that, neither of them move. Chris is still breathing hard into the crook of Zach’s neck, and Zach’s hands have retreated to the relative safety of Chris’s lower back, but he can’t seem to move them any farther away than that. He stares up at the ceiling and tries to process what just happened. 

“I think…” Zach bites down on his lip, thinks of how to do this gently, and then opens his mouth to try again. “I think that was probably a bad thing for us to do.”

Chris lets out a shaky breath and slowly lifts his head, though he opts to look at the arm of the couch rather than look Zach in the eye. There are bright splotches of pink in his cheeks. “You’re probably right.”

It’s comforting, at least, that Chris didn’t try to argue with him. Zach was half-afraid that Chris was going to insist that _this_ was something they could safely continue to do “platonically” too, and that he would find himself agreeing, because if one thing has been proven in the past couple weeks, it’s that Zach is a weak, weak man.

“Can you…?” He taps Chris’s hip, hoping he’ll get the picture. With a wince, Chris carefully crawls off of Zach and gets to his feet, trying to subtly tug the front of his pants away from his crotch. Zach sympathizes. He sits up slowly and runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, so...umm.”

“Look, we don’t have to talk about it,” Chris says. He’s staring down at the floor, curling his toes against the wood. “Or make a big deal about it. It was just...it’s just a thing that happened. That’s all.”

“Right,” Zach says, like a coward. “Just a thing that happened.”

It seems unconscionable that Chris could just walk away right now, but that’s what he does--just turns away without another word and heads for his bedroom, presumably to get out of his soiled pants. Zach stares after him at a loss, and keeps staring after he’s gone, hoping he’ll reappear in the doorway and say _nevermind, Zach, I know we need to talk this out._ But many minutes pass, and the mess in Zach’s shorts is cooling and getting dangerously gummy, an uncomfortable reminder of what just happened, and eventually he forces himself to stand up and walk down the hall to the bathroom.

He peels off his clothes slowly, with his back turned to the mirror, like he’s afraid if he looks at his face he’ll see the imprints of Chris’s mouth there, branding him a traitor and a liar and a terrible friend. He has absolutely blown past the point where he can keep letting himself off the hook by saying he is just helping Chris out. He has been the worst kind of dick--pretending to be selfless while really being selfish to the point that he could have ruined one of his most important friendships, not to mention a working relationship to which he partially owes the success of his career thus far. 

But it’s okay, because that was absolutely the last time. As soon as he gets out of the shower (or maybe tomorrow morning, after they have both cooled off a bit), Zach is going to go find Chris and tell him that they have to cut it out. 

He just hopes his willpower holds out.

The shower helps. The hot water clears his head and sluices Chris’s fingerprints from his body. Once he steps out of it, he feels even more resolve than he did before. He wanders back to the living room, newfound confidence wrapped around him like a shield, and sighs with relief when he sees Chris sitting there on the couch, forearms on his knees, staring at the floor.

“So, I think I have to invoke Rule 3 here, Chris.”

Chris nods slowly, then looks up. “Yeah...that’s...I mean, yes, you’re right. We should stop.”

“It’s just...we have a few weeks of filming left, and we have to work together and live together at least that long, and I don’t want things between us to get messed up.”

“It’s cool, man.” Chris forces a shaky smile, then scrubs a hand across his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take advantage…”

“No, no. You didn’t...you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.” It costs Zach something to admit that, but Chris mercifully seems to take it in stride, his expression flickering only slightly before he is nodding again.

“Okay,” he says, though he doesn’t sound like he’s quite sure he believes it.

“It’s just gotten to be too much.” Zach shifts his weight, wishing he was sitting but too scared to get any closer to Chris. “We should just go back to the way things were.”

Chris blows out a long breath and turns his head to look out the window, rather than at Zach’s face. “Yeah. You’re right. We should.”

This conversation technically couldn’t have gone better. Chris didn’t argue, he doesn’t seem mad, and they seem like they are on the same page. So why doesn’t Zach feel any better?

“Hey, you want to...umm, go for a walk? Get some coffee maybe?” It’s a peace offering. An attempt to keep things from being awkward. Maybe a little stroll in the California sunshine will make everything seem normal again.

When Chris swivels back around, he looks a little more hopeful. Thank God. “Yeah, that sounds great. Let me just get my shoes.”

Chris leaves the room, and Zach slumps against the wall and tries to tell himself it’s going to be okay.

\--------

The wrap party is a lot more subdued than the previous two, either because they are all older and not exactly cut out for partying the way they used to be, or because no one is really sure whether this one is going to be the last one. It depends on the money, on people’s schedules. Zach isn’t sure whether Chris really wants to do another one. Zach isn’t sure _he_ wants to do another one. Working on Trek is fun, and he loves his castmates, but he has never been one to linger in the same place for too long, and this feels like a good point to leave it. But he knows by now not to tempt fate.

Chris seems equal parts melancholy and excited. Zach glances his way and sees him hovering near the bar alone, then ten minutes later sees him in the middle of a circle of the crew, laughing that laugh that lights up his entire face--the entire room even. Their paths barely cross the whole night though. Zach tries to tell himself it’s because they have spent more than enough time with each other for the past few months, but he isn’t sure that’s entirely it. There’s something a little bit broken between them since that day on the couch. Things haven’t exactly been weird or bad or anything like that. They have just been the tiniest bit out of step with each other. If it was anyone other than Chris, Zach probably wouldn’t even notice. But it _is_ Chris, so missing each other by a little bit might as well be missing each other by a mile.

They end up together at the end of the night though, pressed shoulder to shoulder against the wall outside, waiting for their car to come back and get them. Chris is obviously a little tipsy, his head tilted back against the wall behind him, his fingers tapping an imaginary rhythm against his thigh.

“Fuck, it’s over,” he says out of the blue.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Zach turns his head to look at him and realizes that maybe he’s a little tipsy too. Chris looks unfairly pretty, almost ethereal in the soft orange glow of the streetlights, and Zach wants to reach out and take his hand so badly, but they are past that. That part is definitely over. There is a wall up now, a thick pane of glass through which Zach can only glimpse a cloudy, distorted view of what he really wants.

Chris shrugs one shoulder and then rolls his head toward Zach. “I’ve got a feeling. I think it’s just over.”

Zach has no idea if he’s supposed to contradict Chris or not, so he just bites his lip and says nothing. They stare at each other for a long moment, until Chris finally reaches out and wraps his fingers around Zach’s forearm, and Zach looks down at his hand like he has to see it to believe it. It’s the first time they have touched since the couch.

“I’m gonna miss you, man,” Chris says quietly. He won’t meet Zach’s eyes.

“We’ll still see each other all the time.” Zach lays his hand over Chris’s, like that will make it feel like less of a lie.

It doesn’t.

\--------

Two out of three of Zach’s bags are shut up in the trunk of the town car in the driveway, and the other one is sitting by the front door, and Zach and Chris are standing in the front hall with their hands shoved in their pockets, shuffling their feet and clearing their throats like they know each other about half as well as they do. This is not at all the way Zach wanted to say goodbye, but the whole situation has been out of his hands for a long time. This is what they are now. Just two people shuffling their feet.

“Thanks again for letting me take over your house, Chris,” Zach says, breaking the awkward silence.

“Stop it. It was my pleasure, seriously.” He does sound sincere, and Zach can’t help but smile, shrugging his shoulders a little shyly and then looking away. He looks past Chris to the living room, and then past that, out the window to the pool and the orange trees beyond. He’s going to miss this when he gets back to New York. He’ll miss the palm trees and the fresh citrus and the smell of chlorine.

He’ll miss Chris. God, so much. Much more than he wants to admit.

He has to go sometime though. They can’t just stand here forever and put off the inevitable. Zach sighs, then smiles a tight smile and shoulders his bag and reaches for the doorknob.

“Wait,” Chris says. His voice sounds thick, like he’s fighting tears, and when Zach turns around again, it’s like he’s looking at a different person from the one that was standing there a moment ago. There are bright spots of color on Chris’s cheeks, and his eyes are shining, and his chest is rising and falling fast, like he just did a couple laps around the house. “Zach, wait.”

The bag slips back off Zach’s shoulder and hits the ground with a loud thunk. “Chris, what--”

“I don’t want you to go.” The color spreads down Chris’s neck. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides. “I’m so...Jesus, I’m so fucking sick of watching you go. Please don’t.”

Chris takes a step forward, and Zach takes a step back, though he automatically regrets it when it makes Chris gasp like he’s in physical pain. 

“Chris, what are you...I don’t understand.” Zach feels like the room is spinning. He nearly puts out a hand to steady himself on the wall, but he isn’t sure he actually has the coordination to move that much at the moment.

“It was so good with you here. I like the house not being empty, and I love the dogs, and I just...please just stay.

It’s too much all at once. Zach can’t process the pleading in Chris’s voice and the despair in his expression. He can’t reconcile any of it with the fact that he always assumed Chris didn’t feel the same way he did. It just feels like he is asking him to stay because he’s afraid to be alone, and that isn’t good enough. Zach can’t spend the rest of his life being Chris’s security blanket.

“I’ll text you when I land,” he says. He tears his eyes away from Chris’s face, because he doesn’t want to see the expression on his face, and he picks up his bag again. 

This time, when he reaches for the doorknob, he’s not going to let anything stop him. He has already done too much harm here.

\--------

The car makes it nearly to the highway before Zach blurts out, “Stop!”

He doesn’t exactly get the screech of tires he was expecting, but after some back and forth, he manages to convince the driver to turn around and go back. An interminable amount of time later, he has been vomited back onto the sidewalk in front of Chris’s house, with three bags and two dogs, and all he can think is that this is going to be the most awkward confession of love in human history.

Chris opens the door after two knocks, like he was standing on the other side of it, hoping.

“Zach,” he breathes, like he thinks he’s dreaming.

Zach’s bags are still on the porch. He almost trips over leashes and dogs and his own feet multiple times in the process of shouldering his way through the door, past Chris, back into the front hall of the house that feels way too much like a home. He drops the dogs’ leashes, rounds on Chris, and grabs him by the hips, crowding him against the wall.

“I want to kiss you,” he says. “And I want it to mean something.”

“Zach,” Chris says again.

“And I want to play with your hair and cuddle up on the couch and eat all my meals across the table from you and sleep next to you at night. I want all that stuff, Chris, but I want it to be real.”

“Zach,” Chris whispers. He’s shaking his head, but it’s a head shake of disbelief rather than disagreement. 

“I want to stay,” Zach continues. “Tell me to stay, but only...only if you want to do this for real.”

Chris swallows, once, twice. He opens his mouth and closes it again. Then, finally, he reaches up and frames Zach’s face with his hands, looks into his eyes, and says, “Stay.”

“Yes,” Zach says, just before he fits his mouth to Chris’s. “Yes,” he says again a moment later.

And after that, there is no more need for words.


End file.
